In the Flicker
by 13pens
Summary: NOTE: this fic is due for major editing. It will be up until the completed revised version is posted. [post 1x22 AU, SQ Henry]
1. Chapter 1

_note in advance: I sort of don't know what I'm doing. That is all._

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**In the Flicker: Chapter 1**

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Hope was something you were supposed to have when there was nothing left. Throughout the centuries, in literature, fairytales, and in the overall notion of life itself, hope was held by the victims of suffering, ones who deserved everything but instead received a giant hole in their hearts and nothing to put inside. It was the last candle still flickering in the dark when the wind of cruel fate had blown out the rest. Hope was painted as a tragic beauty, rendering the one who hoped a tragic hero, pure and a victim of circumstance. It was meant to be beautiful, to be wonderful.

But the hope that Regina had was mangled, twisted, abused and abusive; something of another nature, different from the candle that still lit as the blackness ensued. The fire was supposed to light the way, not burn everyone in its path – including her.

This flame manifested when the purple storm had swept Storybrooke into darkness, it's crashing rumble engulfing the town and it's thick foggy arms seeming to wrap around the very surface of the earth. As she observed through her window that might as well have been her cage, she accepted this turn of events. Regina had no way of being sure that what would happen would be to her advantage, but wherever there was magic, there was power. Once she had that again, she could do so much more.

The storm came closer.

"Please," her lips seemed to mouth as she closed her eyes, waiting for the dark purple fog wrap itself around the walls of her home, seep into them, and then engulf her to take her away where she would have another chance to win.

But when it came, the corrupt flame gathered and welled up inside, concentrated in her chest. It ached as if claws had dug into the insides. And upon that came the realization: she was doomed.

* * *

When Emma opened her eyes, everything remained as it was before. The fog that rumbled across the entire town stung upon contact, making the very insides of Emma's soul sway.

Henry was still with her. Dr. Whale, Mother Superior, the nurses did not sprout wings or turn into mythical creatures.

Everything in Emma's head was beginning to spin in a slow lull. "Well?" she asked. "What the hell was that?"

Henry, still very astonished by the experience, merely shrugged. "I...I don't know."

Things looked the same. Things felt the same – more or less, if you disregarded the fact that everyone in town had assumed their original person. But it wasn't right.

"Henry, you stay here," Emma said to him, preparing to go outside.

"But-"

"No! You stay. I'll be back."

When Emma exited the hospital, she found that the sky was a lot grayer. The very air had changed, and if you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself in a den of fairies-which was something Emma didn't know if she liked or not.

Everyone in Storybrooke had formed small clumps, each varying from rejoicing with each other, checking if they were okay, some plain ticked off and ready for the Queen's blood.

"Hey." A voice chimed in. Emma was unable to determine where it was coming from.

"Emma!" it came again.

"What? Who is this? Where are you?" She spun around, looking up and down, all the while feeling downright ridiculous.

She felt something tingle on her shoulder. When she looked, she could not comprehend what she had seen.

"No goddamn way."

"Language, Princess Emma," the cricket said.

"Uh-uh, no," Emma refused to accept, but not wanting to flick it—him, what the goddamn ever—off her shoulder, or even touch it. Him. "Archie?"

"Jiminy."

"Wow, okay, no." Emma brought herself to gently pick Archie off her shoulder and placed him with the next person she saw. "Ruby! Hold Archie for me."

"Red, actually," Red said to Emma before she turned away. Emma knit her eyebrows in confusion, then noticed the red cloak around Ruby.

She opened her mouth to say something along the lines of "no fucking way," but instead tried a pathetic smile and replied, "Got it."

When Emma returned, Henry was hastily having soup, hungry from not having eaten when he was comatose. His stomach was still a bit fragile, as were the rest of his organs – after all, he had been dead for about two minutes. Magic had a hand in springing them back to life but magic could not manipulate biology.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked him as she sat down in a chair next to his bed, even though that question was not the first one she wanted to ask (which was probably bad of her as his mother, but given that the entire town of Storybrooke had flipped its shit, it was understandable.)

"Yeah," he said. Then coughed roughly. Emma blew air out of her cheeks.

"Got any ideas?"

Henry swallowed his soup. "For?"

"Well, this," Emma gestured. "Archie's a cricket. Ruby now goes by Red. My real parents are probably going to bust inside here and I don't know if I'm ready for that. Just... how? You're the expert, tell me."

Henry shrugged. Right, Emma thought. The child had been passed out and dead while she and Regina had been off pulling that mission and-

"Where's Regina?" Emma finally bothered to ask.

The question had also brought several things to Henry's attention. He subtly went paler than he had been as he looked up at Emma.

"If magic is in Storybrooke, that means mom has..." Henry trailed off. The word "mom" felt strange in his mouth knowing that Regina was now fully the evil queen he had accused her of being.

Emma saw the internal struggle happening on Henry's face. It was suddenly quiet.

She wished she could've left. Took Henry and went off, left this place once and for all. But she knew if she even proposed such an idea Henry would protest. She was the savior, and people still needed saving. What a tired load of shit. Slicing open a fire-breathing dragon and breaking part of the curse should've been enough.

Then Emma remembered another thing, the very reason that she and Regina had worked together to save Henry in the first place.

"Gold," she said, "he stole- but-"

"Stole what?"

"He took this... this I don't know, true love in a bottle. I had to fight a dragon 'cause-"

"Whoa, you what?" Henry said excitedly, almost spilling his now lukewarm soup, and then coughing a bit more.

"Look, never mind, I'm going to find your mother." Emma stood up, scooting the chair back when a woman turned up into the room.

The air thickened.

"Oh, but darling," the woman said, a sickly red smile plastered on her face. "As I understand it, you are his mother."

She was dressed in dark red, obviously not from town - or this time period - or this world, for that matter.

Henry shivered. Emma stood defensively. "And you are?"

The woman strode with eerie grace toward Emma, holding out her hand. "Cora Mills. You said you were going to find my daughter?"


	2. Chapter 2

**In the Flicker: Chapter 2**

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"_You're_ Regina's mother?" Emma asked, astonished, slightly uncomfortable, and sort of sick. She stuck her fingers in her pockets because they were shaking.

When they said some people had a certain air around them, they were not fucking kidding.

Her hand left unshaken, Cora Mills took it back. Her movements were nice and not awkward but unfortunately made everyone else feel so.

Mother Superior had come in to check in on Henry and his food, but stopped as she met eyes with Cora.

"May we help you?" she said, evidently hiding her terror.

Cora turned to her direction with that eerie grace again. "I was simply wondering if good little Henry may be released. His lovely mother Emma and I want to visit someone, and I would like it best if he had come." She turned to Emma and said with a sickly sweet voice, "Isn't that so, Miss Swan?"

Emma's stomach churned. Henry reached up to hold her hand, his gesture of readiness. She took a glance at Mother Superior. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry, I cannot allow-"

"You cannot what, my dear?" Cora said, her hand beckoning ever so slightly, obviously eliciting something from her.

The fear that rushed through Mother Superior's face was sickening.

"Fine. You may. I will retrieve Henry's clothes."

Cora tilted her head as if to say "well now, was that so hard?" then said, "Thank you, my dear. We're on a very tight schedule."

Mother Superior left, and Emma could've sworn that she could see transparent wings emerge from under her dress.

"Okay," Emma said demandingly, catching Cora's attention. "What do you want?"

"What else would I care to want? I would just like to see my darling daughter and have some company. She does go into fits whenever I come alone."

Emma could only imagine why.

It was probably a dumb move to comply with her, Emma thought. But it would be less of a good choice not to. All sorts of things could happen. Mother and Daughter could join forces and take over the world. Daughter could kill Mother. Or Mother could do something to Daughter. Either way, she wouldn't like to let something happen just because she didn't like Regina's mother.

Mother Superior returned with Henry's clothes.

"I'll be waiting outside," Cora said, and slid out the door. The discomfort lingered.

They were standing in front of Regina's house. The whole trip (in which Cora insisted they walked, making everything so much more uncomfortable), Emma tried not to pay attention to the seven dwarves and numerous winged women fluttering their not yet fully recovered and developed wings. She had caught the eyes of David and Mary Margaret, now apparently Snow White and Prince James Charming. They would've approached her as they had longed to, but Snow had seen Cora with them and stopped her and Charming dead in their tracks.

People stood at a vicinity of Regina's house, not daring to go inside but seeming to wait. Their eyes were resentful. Emma supposed they had every reason to be.

"Why don't you knock, dearest Henry?" Cora suggested. "I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."

"O-okay," he complied. Henry let go of Emma's hand (and after doing so, he felt as if he had unhinged himself to the danger of Cora) and walked up to Regina's door. Emma side-eyed Cora, who was only looking straight at her little scene.

Henry's knuckles hovered over the wood, afraid that if Regina opened the door, the woman he'd known for the last 10 years of his life would be replaced by the one he had seen her as for the past few. Many times he had wished he had been wrong. Now was one of them.

Before he made contact with the door, it had opened.

It was Regina as he had last seen her, albeit looking extremely worn out. Their eyes met, and Regina's glistened at the sight of her son. Only for a moment, however, before she focused her attention to Cora, stepped outside, pulling Henry behind her defensively.

"What do you want?" Her eyes flickered to Emma as well, as if angry that she would ever agree to bring Cora here.

Cora stood in her place. "I only wanted to see you," she said sweetly. "After all, I spent 28 years stuck in that silly little hat! Surely, you could've thought of something to do with me in this Storybrooke of yours."

"I don't think that's what you would have wanted," Regina said evenly.

"Hmm, you seem to be right. I wanted none of this for you. You were better off a queen."

Emma was not liking this. She wanted to shout at Cora, demand answers from Regina, but she felt that she was and should be mute.

"You know very well that was not the case with me."

Cora ignored her response. "And so what? You are better in a land without magic, without power? You are simply a mayor of a tiny portion of the world. You are tiny! Tiniest you've ever been, playing around, very pathetically. And now look at you, snatching up other people's children? I am sorry to say, Regina, that boy is not your son-"

When Regina started to visibly hurt was when Emma took herself off mute. "Stop it," Emma snapped, and then immediately regretted it when Cora shot her a pernicious glance, mouth curled up into a disgusting smile. She couldn't have helped it. Cora's very voice made her want to go insane with the sickness she was inducing.

Regina glared at Emma for a moment, thought about the ironies of Emma trying to take her son back and then taking offense when someone else pointed out to Regina what Emma had been trying to do all this time, then focused back on Cora.

"Get to your point, mother."

"I'd like to make an offer to you, my darling. You have not been kind to your mother, but I will forgive you."

"I don't need your forgiveness."

"I can take you back, Regina. Take you back to be a queen."

The people who were standing across the street were now watching, feeling the tension. Snow and James had appeared, still not getting any closer. Any attempts James tried to make to call out to Emma and Henry, Snow had promptly shushed him.

Regina acknowledged this slight crowd. She looked at them with subtle menace as if to reassure them that their choice to not move forward was wise. She did not meet the eyes of Snow White.

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll simply make you."

Before Regina could even open her mouth to respond, Cora had taken Emma Swan by the arm, almost twisting it. This action finally made James among other people lunge toward them, and made Henry do the same.

"Let go!" Emma angrily protested, trying to wriggle out of Cora's grip, but her touch made her entire arm go numb. Fucking magic.

"No, sorry," Cora said, not feeling so sorry at all. She took out a green object that looked like either a stone or an oversized seed, flung it to the ground, and the earth between Cora and Emma shuddered and caved in, bringing them into a green tunnel of light below the surface.

And they were gone.

"Emma!" Henry cried, running toward the pit of dirt that had formed where Cora and Emma were.

Regina stood there still, stupefied at what had just happened. In other circumstances she would rejoice, but these were not these circumstances.

James and others had broken through the gate. "Where is she?" he demanded of Regina. "Where has she taken her?"

He looked as if to kill her. Regina swallowed. "Back home."

The news spread quickly. When Regina had told James where her mother had taken Emma, he immediately stormed off, and as followers to their King, the others went with him. Regina took this opportunity to bring Henry and herself inside and cast a deadlock spell over all places in the house that could be smashed or broken into.

"Mom, please," Henry sobbed. The sight of his tears made Regina turn away. "Help her."

"She's a fool," Regina said angrily. Her back was facing Henry, and she had her arms crossed over her chest defensively. "Did she think she was being brave? Complying with that devil of a mother that I... I hate her, Henry, I hate your fool of a mother and my witch of one." She said this to him still without turning to his direction.

This silenced Henry, but he was anything but willing to back down. He could think of so many hurtful things to say, but they wouldn't leave his tongue.

"I don't know how to help her, Henry. I'm sorry." Regina, without looking at him, walked out of the room, leaving Henry hopeless and tearstained.

* * *

Henry tossed and turned in his bed. Sleep was the last thing he wanted to do, for Emma was on his mind. And so was his mom. And the people throwing pebbles at the mansion walls. They shouted curses aimed at Regina, but when someone had pointed out that Henry was also inside, they grumpily retreated.

Henry slipped out of bed. Many questions had arisen and it was not his nature to suppress them. He quietly made his way to Regina's bedroom, and when he found that she was not inside, went downstairs.

He found her in the kitchen, drinking a glass of cider at the table, and he sat across from her.

Regina just looked at him as she took another sip. "Why aren't you asleep?" she asked tiredly but calmly, all the energy and anger worn from her.

"Who is your mother?" Henry asked, and he immediately felt like he was going to get a bad reaction, but he had to go on. He needed to know. "She wasn't in the book. Where was she this whole time? What hat?"

Regina sighed. She was not used to being directly asked questions related to the other world without scorn tossed her way, nor was she easily prepared answer them.

"She's the Queen of Hearts," she said. "I trapped her, she escaped. How, I don't know. It doesn't matter how it happened anyhow." She put down the glass of cider, not wanting any more of it. It reminded her of Emma.

Henry sat, looking on at the vulnerability that Regina was uncharacteristically displaying in front of him.

"If there is anything I fear the most, Henry, it's her."

"Then we've got to fight her!" Henry exclaimed. "For you and for Emma! Please?"

"And just how would we do that? 'We' should not even be a matter in this, you are not going anywhere near that woman."

"But," Henry was growing frustrated with the apparently hopeless situation. "You have magic! Use it!"

"Not enough. Not enough to bring us an entire world away. Not even my mother used her magic alone, she had something with her, that, seed."

Neither of them spoke for a while, because the other seemed to want to say something. Regina spoke first when decided that Henry would not.

"If it had been me," she began. "Would you ask Emma to save me?"

The insecurity seemed to leak from her voice. Henry didn't know how to answer.

Regina took this as a sad confirmation. She got up from her seat. "Very well then. I have an idea."

"What?"

"Come."

Regina went for the back door and Henry followed. When he stepped outside, Regina stopped him.

"Coat."

"What? Now?"

"Get it. It's cold."

Henry ran upstairs and chose a thick red hoodie to wear, then went back down.

They made sure to be quiet as people were still around, possibly organizing a lynch against Regina. She paid no real attention to them. They got into her car and drove an alternate road. The lit streets eventually turned black and the only light was from the headlights. Lamp posts turned into tree trunks, cement into dirt and grass.

Regina parked on a road, and she and Henry went walking through the woods with pairs of flashlights.

He held tight onto her hand. "Where are we going?" Henry, quite afraid of the forests at night, shined his light on every possible thing.

"A certain tree. Stop that."

"Sorry."

"It was the magic wardrobe that brought Emma here. It might still work after the magic surge."

Once they found it, Henry made an audible gasp. "No way." He gave Regina his flashlight as he explored the wardrobe, circumvented it, opened it.

"Think it'll work?" he asked.

"It looked freshly repaired. It might." She laid her hand on the bark, inspecting it. "Not enough magic. I'd have to kickstart it."

"And it'll lead to Emma?"

"Not directly to her, but at least be in the same place."

Henry was overjoyed. "It looks like it could fit the both of us."

Regina jerked her head toward him. "No, you're not going."

"But-"

"You are not going one mile near my mother. She took Emma from you and I don't want her to take you from me."

"But you have to take me! What if you two get stuck there? I'll never see you or Emma again."

"Conversely, what if that happens with you?" Regina tried to keep herself from shouting at him. "There is no argument here, Henry. Come on, we're going back."

"What?"

"Tomorrow morning is when I'll leave. You'll be placed in Mary-Snow White's care." Henry did not see Regina wince.

What was a breakthrough turned into the most disappointing moment of his life. When they drove back, they did not speak in the car.

The roads were generally clear this time, no one was staking out. But if things kept on, Storybrooke would be a riotous mess in shambles.

Regina did not notice that Henry had fallen asleep in the back seat until she went out of the car. She sighed as she rounded over to open the door and gently lift him so as not to wake him. She carried him as she had done so when he was about 4 or 5, his small, warm head on her shoulder and his drool threatening to leak onto her blazer. As she went up the stairs with Henry sleepily clinging around her neck, she began to remember the years not so long ago when it was just her and him.

But those times were not now. She was not at constant risk of losing him back then, especially not given this situation at the present.

She tucked him in like she used to do all the time, and before he had stirred to see the tears streaming down her face, she had already gone to her own room.

* * *

Emma found that she had woken up not on the cold stone floors of a dark dungeon or tied up on a platform, but on a bed. A quite comfortable bed. A bed that had obviously not been used for a long time because Emma was coughing up what seemed to be pounds of dust. If this was Emma's captivity, she thought it suited Cora well to stick her in an uncleaned room instead of a dungeon.

Coughing, she got up and checked the knob of the door. It was unlocked.

The rest of the house seemed to be well kept. Or maybe, just managed last minute. "Hello?" she called into the hallway.

There was no one there. Good. Then maybe she could find a way out and back home.

Except home didn't exist here. When she located and opened the front door, all she saw was grass, a whole fucking lot of it, green but bordering a yellowish hue. It was overgrown, not having been stepped on for a long time. In the distance, there were broken carriages, houses in ruins, tremendous trees with their leaves that looked like small swarms of locusts in the wind.

She walked on, trying not to lose direction of the house she had woken up in lest she decided she needed to go back. Still pretty much grass and far off trees, with the exception of what looked like a horse stable. As she went, she thought of how either this place was some really, really rural area that just so happened to be abandoned down to the last soul, or she was in... a really, really rural area that just so happened to be the fairy tale world.

Oh fuck.

Emma ran back to the house. There had to be a way back. Maybe Cora, if she had placed her here (well of course she had, motherfu-), also had those spare whatever the hell she used to get them here. She scoured all the rooms she could possibly find. There weren't that many, thank God, because all of them seemed to be flooded in dust.

There was a door, the very last one down the hall, and it was the only one that was locked. Emma knocked, then thought of the absurdity of the action, and merely kicked the door open, putting a hand over her nose and mouth in case this room would make her lungs fill with unwanted particles. Luckily, the air was clean.

But creepy. It was a small room, just big enough to fit an entire king sized bed if you tried really, really hard. It was dead silent-all but for Emma's breathing and her pulse, and what seemed to be a separate rhythmic sound. On the wall opposite the door, there was a wooden table, where the flame of a candle flickered. Next to it, was an intricately designed box, much like the one Ruby-Red, whatever-had found when they were looking for Kathryn (or whatever she was called now). This one was different, however. It was red and white, the vibrance of its color sinister in the candle light.

Emma approached the desk. The rhythm was louder. She ran her fingers along the lid of the metal box, not sure if she wanted to open it. She could feel the vibrations pulsating through the walls of it. In the end, she decided to.

And she did not like what she found inside.

She jolted a step back at the sight of what was in the box. She could have just closed it up and never have to look at it again, but her eyes could not leave it.

"What in the... What is this?" she finally said in horror.

She did not expect to get an answer: "That, my dear," Cora's voice boomed from the door, "is Regina's heart."

The candle blew out.


	3. Chapter 3

note: I made a small error in chapter 2, calling the tree that Pinocchio and Emma came out of a wardrobe. I need to start doing minor accuracy checks before I post chapters lol, sorry.

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_"We live in the flicker—may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness_

* * *

**In the Flicker: Chapter 3**

* * *

As if the situation had been usual and therefore easily taken off of focus, Cora had minded the candle and relit it. "Sorry about that. This world is short on technology."

"What do you mean Regina's heart?" Emma demanded, revolted at Cora's composure at such a sick thing. "What the fuck did you do?"

Cora daintily picked up the pulsating heart with one hand, inspecting it as if it had been an ordinary object. The beat quickened at her touch. Something in Emma's lower stomach convulsed.

"A collateral, is all. Once she gives me her obedience, she may have it back. You see, the heart is a terrible distraction from ambition. Nothing but absurdities follow the heart, like falling in love and sentimentality."

"Yeah? Well what happened to yours?"

Cora turned to face Emma, corners of her mouth turned up but eyes likes ice, demented. "Why have it when I have others?"

Her eyes narrowed at Cora, suddenly feeling a wave of rage on Regina's behalf and all the other people who had got tied up in the stupid backlash. "So you're why Regina's like this. You're why she's so twisted, evil, cruel, and-" the anger was bubbling up in Emma, with great influence to the fact that Cora only seemed to enjoy the way her blood was beginning to boil. It meant something was to be cooked, and that would feed Cora's goals.

"And what, my dear?" she said, taking a step closer, "Surely for all she's done, you must hate her for it. You must realize that while I took her heart, I never took away her choices. She has done what she has done at her own accord. I have no responsibility for the treachery Regina has done to you and your family."

Cora gripped Emma's wrist with a strength aided by magic, and therefore rendered Emma powerless. For a moment she thought she was going to break her hand off until Cora pressed the heart onto her hand.

"What," Emma breathed, feeling the uncharacteristic dryness of the heart, its muscles beating in a quickening rhythm.

"This heart belongs to the woman responsible for everything wrong in your life," Cora said, reveling in Emma's inability to look away from the dark and glowing organ. Her voice was slow and drawling, emphasizing every note of pain that each word should have inflicted. "Think back, Emma Swan. Remember what it was like to be given up. Remember what it was like to know, to see, that nobody had wanted you. You were passed along like a chain letter."

"Stop it," Emma said with a low edge in her voice. Her fingers were beginning to twitch into the general action of squeezing the heart. She resisted, but it was inevitable, the pain of those years had rushed back into her and it flowed into her rising rage.

"She took you away from your parents. And just imagine, if she had not? That you would have lived with your precious family, always loved and cared for, never abandoned like the so many families that have done so? Do you think you would have known what it was like to be missed when you would leave? All those moments of happiness only to be filled by family, gone because Regina could not let her grudges go. And your son? I'm sure you can remember that. It happened just not long ago. You want to make her pay for it all, don't you?"

Soon Cora deemed the situation well enough that her verbal encouragements were no longer needed. She had let go of Emma some time ago, and was enjoying the image of the pure Snow White's daughter, a heart in her hand, eyes pooled in darkness and rancor and sadness and pain, hands threatening to squeeze the life out of Regina's heart. Of course, she could not allow her to do that - if Emma took it too far, Cora would have to intervene.

Emma fought hard. Twenty-eight years, she thought. Twenty eight! Close to three decades being alone, wandering, unloved, and the one time she had found a chance, just a chance of happiness, Regina had tried to take it all away. Flashes of misery came to her mind. She thought about her mother, her father, all the people in Storybrooke who had become her friends, innocent people, all under the clutch of Regina's curse. Those twenty-eight years of utter bullshit. She remembered it all. Her fingers clenched tighter.

But as she held on to Regina's heart, it vibrated of more than pulses. It tingled down to her nerves and up into her head, frantic screaming, miserable pain. She had a flash of Regina locked away, hands clutching at the empty cavity of her chest and was immediately repulsed by what she was doing. Emma snapped out of this hate filled trance.

She stopped the pressure on the heart, allowing it to rest on her palm, only supported by her fingers like a cradle. The images had stopped, and the only sounds she could hear were the pulses that were now easing (albeit very strained) and her rough breathing. She held it to her with both hands now, as if protecting it, as if wanting to undo what she had done.

She looked up at Cora, who was no longer smiling. In fact, she was disconcerted. Emma's brows were knit in a combination of regret and appalling. "No."

* * *

It was the next morning. Regina was on her way to the tree, driving in silence and missing the presence of someone in the backseat. She had sent Henry to Snow White's apartment, not ever once getting out of the car for fear of that mob group that just kept accumulating angry supporters. She had spoken very briefly to Snow via phone, informing her that from now on she was in charge. Magic was back but governance still had to be maintained. James was assigned as fill in for Emma as sheriff.

She still hurt from last night. All other times she could stifle her cries at the physical pain, but last night was not of norm. After it was done, she almost wished it had just finished her off, and she was only aware of the fact that she had been screaming when she saw Henry's shadow under her door. He had stood there for a while, but decided not to go inside when Regina's pain had subsided. It was better that way, Regina thought. Henry didn't have to see her like that. But the image of his shadow under her door still came to her mind, haunting her and reminding her of the love she could not win.

As she drove she tried to concentrate on how she would actually go about saving Emma and successfully bringing her back to Storybrooke. She didn't exactly have a long-term plan. As she began to think about it, she never really did.

Regina stopped the car the same place as last night. She did not bother deadlocking the car, or the house. There was nothing left for her there, and as she kept on thinking about the place she had once called home, she realized that the only thing she was left to do was to make an exchange. Her for Emma. Her out of the picture forever.

She stepped out and as she did, the backseat doors clicked. Regina whipped around-"Henry!"

He had been hiding on the floor of the back seat. There was absolutely no way that Henry would have not gone to his mother's rescue mission, and he was determined about this. But it did not keep him from blanching when Regina's expression turned into anger.

She opened her mouth to reprimand him, but was cut short by a sudden crackling spark of fire that nearly scorched her face if she had not moved for it to hit the tree. That damned mob, they had the audacity to come after her when she was trying to make things right.

"Let's go!" Henry said, tugging at Regina's arm and not even closing the door, and soon the both of them were running into the forest, leaves crunching under their feet, shouts and crackles in the distance behind them. They had overturned her car, and did not seem willing to back down even as they saw a little boy lead Regina by the arm.

The tree was in sight, and Henry put all his effort into his legs. Regina kept close behind him, shielding him from any blows that the mob could make. They finally reached it, the gaping hole seeming to rush them in.

"Get in," Regina urged as she lifted him up into the tree. Another spark had been aimed at her but also missed, and at this point she was exasperated. She turned around and from that distance pushed the attackers onto their backs with invisible force.

The delay was long enough for her to squeeze into the hole. She held Henry close to her, shielding him still, and with a hand firmly pressed into the internal walls of the tree, summoned all the magic she possibly had and let it flow into the tree. It glowed, something she wasn't sure it was supposed to do, and Henry looked out at the mob who had suddenly stopped in their tracks, dumbfounded.

And in a second, they were gone.

–––––

It had been the first in a long time since Regina had jumped realms. She was no longer accustomed to the exhilaration that it gave. Instead, it turned into dread. When everything in sight was replaced by darkness, Regina made it a point to push her way out, finding that there were doors in front of her and they were indeed in the wardrobe.

Henry fell out first, landing on the floor of a room full of shattered glass that he made sure not to press his exposed skin to. The experience was dizzying for him, and he was still slightly disoriented when Regina stepped out, exhausted and irritated.

"I told you that you couldn't come," she began, this close to seeing no point in keeping her motherly calm with Henry. "Do you know how much more complicated this makes things?"

"Emma's my mother!" Henry fought back. "I want to save her!"

"Do you honestly think," Regina said to him, her voice raising, "that you can do that now? How am I supposed to bring both you and your God forsaken mother back? The wardrobe can only bring two people. I'm not even sure it will work again because it already took two of us. Why, Henry? Just..." Regina trailed off, her voice breaking. She turned away from him, her hand on her mouth.

Henry said nothing. There was nothing he really could say. What should he? That he did not trust Regina with Emma's life? That as much as he wanted to believe that she wouldn't let him down that she would anyway? Because that's what she had essentially when it came to the curse?

Regina sighed after the long silence. Her hand was at the back of her neck as she looked down at the floor where she once last stood as queen. She remembered standing over Snow and her fallen prince as the curse had taken its course, the shattering glass and dark clouds dancing around her. She truly believed that she would have won then.

She pushed back the glass shards and little dust that accumulated with a small weak force.

"We'll need to move quickly. You do not leave my sight, is that understood?"

Henry nodded, then realized that she was still not looking at him. "Yeah."

* * *

Emma's refusal to harm Regina any more did not earn her a good response from Cora. The heart was taken from her and she found herself in that dusty room again (with considerably less dust, Glory Be to God) and this time the door was locked and the only time anything passed from this room was when Cora opened a vortex-like hole through the wall to give Emma food and water. Well shit, at least she was being a little hospitable.

But she was not one to just take it like a good little girl, as even Cora knew. She pounded at the door, kicked it, grabbed random objects to try and smash at it open, all to no avail. She tried the lone window next to the bed, and when nothing would break through she gave up and went back to abusing the door.

"I don't get it!" Emma shouted through the wall. "What the hell do you need me for?"

"Everything," Cora's voice resounded from an unidentifiable source. It seemed to reverberate inside Emma's very head. "I take you and Regina follows."

"If you haven't noticed, Mrs. Mills," Emma yelled, still trying to beat the door with her bare hands, "your daughter sort of wanted me dead."

"And she still does, I imagine. But whether or not she does is irrelevant. She'll do it for your boy."

Emma stopped trying to fight her way out with an exasperated and strangled groan. "All you Mills are insane."

Cora only chortled. And when Emma tried to ask any more questions, she received no response.

She looked around the room. Dawn was peering over the window, it's glass unscathed by the numerous attempts to shatter it.

"Fine," Emma said to the air. "I'll stay put. Just at least get rid of all this fucking dust."

Cora, ever so hospitable, did so. Soon the air was clean, all the particles draining from under the door. Candles were lit on the end table to provide light.

"I might as well keep my captives comfortable, yes?" Cora said, mocking in her voice. Emma resisted the urge to shout.

When night rolled in she could not sleep. She rested on the bed she had woken in some hours ago, legs hanging off the edge. The sheets had a tinge of a scent in them, one that was only really vaguely familiar if she tried her hardest to remember. It made her realize that she had not stopped to wonder whose room this used to be.

If Emma was to stay in this room for an indefinite amount of time, she might as well do something useful like gather information.

The general feel of Cora in relation to this place seemed quite obvious - it was familiar to her, and so Emma deduced that it was her home before the curse had swept her up. There was a wardrobe in the corner of the room, and she decided to open it. It was empty, save for some spare sheets and a cape. On the floor of the wardrobe, there was a small wooden chest. "R.M" was engraved on it, and Emma realized that it stood for Regina Mills. This was Regina's room.

Inside the chest, thank goodness, were not any hearts. If this had belonged to Regina at the present, you would have expected it to. But this was of Regina of the older times, when she bothered to place little wooden trinkets and carvings of trees in a little box. There was a folded piece of paper, but it was blank. A letter Regina never had the chance to write, Emma supposed.

A little horse figurine stuck out to Emma. She picked it up and nearly laughed. Could you imagine, Regina being one of the little girls that asked for a pony for her birthday? Her face when she'd actually gotten one? How she would ride through those once greener fields of grass, feeling free instead of the need to inflict pain?

Emma's amused expression turned into a sad frown as she thought about Regina. There was still so much she did not know about her, and even if that knowledge would never justify the treachery she had committed, it would have helped her a great deal in both wanting to save her from herself and then also do it.

But whatever she knew or didn't know, she was sure that Regina didn't deserve this, and nobody deserved to deal with the result.

She placed the horse back into the chest, laid it back into the wardrobe and closed it, crawled into the bed and wrapped herself around the sheets that smelled like who Regina used to be. That night she had nightmares about the heart being suffocated in her hand and not being able to stop.


	4. Chapter 4

**In The Flicker: Chapter 4**

* * *

Cora was not around the next day, and did not return when night fell. Emma found that the door had been unlocked, and it was as if no other soul had set foot inside. This was too easy, far too easy, but it was all Emma had. What was she to do? Wait? No. This was the fairy tale world but no prince would come trotting to her rescue. She was going to get herself out.

But before she did, something came to her attention. What she was going to do might get her killed, possibly get Regina killed, but there wasn't a chance that she would leave it here. Emma tossed the entire place looking for a bag until she found a knapsack, and then found her way to the room at the end of the hall. As it had been the first time, it was locked, and she kicked it open.

The chest was there. Being very careful about how she handled it, she put it inside the knapsack, and promptly made a run for it.

The front door would've been a stupid move. There was a small door at the back, one that couldn't be simply walked through but instead needed to be crawled through. But as Emma took the knob, she found that it was locked, stronger than the door she previously busted down.

"Shit," Emma cursed as she twisted and turned the knob, wriggling it and kicking at it. Suddenly the handle moved from the other side and forced its way open.

For a good moment, Emma thought she was done for, but who she found at the other side was not who she was expecting.

"Regina?"

"Quickly. Let's go," she said, gesturing for Emma to hurry and offering her hand.

"What are you doing here? Are you seriously _saving_ me?"

"Yes, it sounds as absurd to me as well, now come on."

Emma took Regina's hand as she pulled herself through. "I did not need saving, by the way."

"Quite," Regina grumbled, annoyed.

"Emma!" Henry exclaimed as he saw her. He had been waiting behind Regina.

"Henry!"

Suddenly all hell and thunder was heard.

"Oh my, what a sweet family reunion," Cora said, appearing at a distance in front of them. "I knew you'd come, darling."

Regina swallowed as she took her stance in between her mother and the two behind her. This would've been easier, much easier, but now there was an extra complication. Or as her mother would put it, a distraction.

"Come now, Regina, come to where you belong," Cora coaxed. Her arms widened, and had another person made the same gesture, it would be warm and welcoming, a gate to forgiveness and proper motherly love. But on Cora, her arms were like an abyss of darkness.

And Regina was thinking about it. The option of giving up had seriously been taken into consideration. But on her mother's terms, and perhaps as a result her terms as well, Regina was weak. She looked behind her at Henry and saw his eyes shine in fear and anticipation. He clutched onto Emma but he was looking straight at Regina, and she couldn't. She just couldn't.

She turned around to face Cora, her face painted with sadness and determination all at once. "No."

With that, Regina swiftly raised her hands and purple fire materialized from the air and like a dragon flew its way in Cora's general direction. Cora did not expect this, but was prepared as she countered the attack with her own forceful blow, a red, hazy smoke.

Regina struck again, stepping forward, taken by the adrenaline of what she was actually doing. It was not long until Cora took offensive. She snapped her fingers up and disappeared into a red smoke. Regina whipped around, particularly facing Henry and Emma lest Cora aimed for them.

Cora appeared behind Regina, immediately grabbing hold of her wrist and twisting it behind her back.

"Regina!" Emma shouted, but before she could get up and (poorly attempt) to help her, Regina's free hand had flung into their direction, sending a purple haze that engulfed Emma and Henry, relocating them back to the castle, out of Cora's reach.

This angered Cora. She twisted Regina around to face her, now having a hold on both her wrists. "I've had enough of your disobedience," she hissed as Regina struggled in attempt to get out of her mother's magically aided grip.

"Stop," she begged. But Cora made no notice to her cries. Instead she chanted, words that Regina never mastered and would never be able to control, the magic of the truly dark. Regina squirmed.

_Please! I'll be good!_

An immense pain had run through Regina, in all fronts possible, in her body and in her mind. In a wave of desperation, Regina finally dissolved into a flicker of dark mauve flames, successfully escaping her mother, but at a price.

"Regina," Emma called out as she materialized in front of them, on all fours outside of the castle. She was clutching against her stomach, when she really meant to be cradling her entire being. Emma ran up to her, Henry following, but Regina rose up with fire in her eyes.

"You!" she seethed as she violently grasped at Emma's wrists the exact same way Cora had done just moments before. "You had to do this! This is all your fault!"

Normally Emma would have fought back, but she was in the clear disadvantage as for one, Emma had no magic and Regina did, and two, she could not bring herself to summon retaliatory hatred when there were tears running down Regina's angry face.

"Mom, stop!" Henry finally said, clutching at her sleeves, and that snapped Regina out of it. She let go of Emma, and before anyone could ask any questions, stormed off into the castle in livid and hurt strides.

* * *

It wouldn't be long until Cora figured where they were. Not like she needed to, anyway. Regina gave neither Henry nor Emma the time to ask what she had done, and Regina was not willing to give the answer, but whatever it was, it called for no action on Cora's part.

Regina had designated a room for both Emma and Henry in the center of the floor below the ground floor, a room that was among a row of identical ones. These rooms were meant for servants of the court, and wouldn't likely be touched if anyone came bustling through. Emma had ventured into another one to place the knapsack and its contents away. She'd found a bigger storage chest covered by a cloth and stored it there.

Emma and Henry, unable to sleep from the anxiety and shock of being in an entirely new environment, decided to venture the castle floors until they reached a flat surface on a roof. They sat on the floor of it, looking up at the sky. It was illuminated with kinds of stars that they'd never dreamed of, shining bright and of different colors. If you looked really closely, a trail of unkept fairy dust made straits of gleaming dots across the black night.

"Wow," was all Emma could manage to say.

"Wow is right," Henry concurred, staring in awe. His book would never compare to the real thing. There they felt at peace, something that they did not take for granted given the events that had just unfolded the past few days.

"So how'd she let you come along?" Emma inquired. She'd been meaning to ask this for a while, but after all that had happened today she couldn't find the right time. It seemed uncharacteristic of Regina to have Henry involved, especially with someone as psychotic as her mother in the mix.

"She didn't. I snuck on."

Emma smiled. Of course he would.

"I think she meant it, you know," Emma said to Henry. "What she said in the hospital. After that it's sorta rude to go around scaring her like that, don't you think?"

Henry didn't respond. The wonder on his face had gone as he eyed the jeweled sky.

"What's up, kid?" Emma nudged.

"She wasn't planning to come back," he said. "That's why I came. Or, it wasn't until after... I didn't..."

"How are you so sure?"

"Earlier she said- she said how me coming made things complicated. But the look at her face- It wasn't..."

He trailed off at a loss of words to properly explain how he knew his mother's intentions. He thought he'd been especially skilled at seeing through her. He was perceptive, that's what Archie had said, and he believed that he knew Regina inside out. After yesterday, after today, he questioned everything he knew about her. He wasn't even sure he could trust what he saw when she was upset at his coming along. It was like he was right about everything that he wanted to be wrong, and was wrong about everything that he wanted to be right.

"I don't understand," he finally said. "None of this was in the book."

"I don't think it would've been," Emma replied, "or else you wouldn't... hey, Henry?"

There were tears in his eyes, and he tried to wipe them away with his sleeve.

"It's not fair, Emma," he said, his voice high pitched and muffled in the fabric of his sweater. "I've been fighting on the wrong side this whole time. I could've helped her get better, I could've just-" he broke into sobs.

"Hey, no, Henry, listen," Emma said softly, wrapping her arms around Henry as frustrated tears streamed down his face. "This is not your fault, you hear me?"

"But it is."

"Oh boy." Emma hugged him securely now, her chin resting atop his head. She slowly rocked him as he cried, and she wondered if Regina'd ever done this when Henry was upset.

"Listen. You couldn't have known. I couldn't have known. I don't think anybody except her and her mother would have known. Yes, Henry, we were wrong. But so was Regina. The why doesn't always make up for the what, or the how. But you know what, kid? We can try to help her pick up the pieces. Okay? Henry."

He nodded for fear of his answer coming out strained in a cry. They sat in comfortable silence in each other's embrace as he tried to calm down.

"I miss my mom," he said after a while, sniffling in the aftermath of his outpouring. Henry'd never let it out before. In fact he never did realize how much he kept his feelings in when it came to Regina. It was only coming to him now that the reason why he hated her so much was because he didn't hate her at all.

* * *

Henry had fallen asleep next to Emma in her room, worn out from the day (and night). Regina had found them there, sleeping soundly. There she stood, right at the doorway, looking at how heartbreakingly right they looked. A mother and her son curled up against her, as it should be.

Regina remembered when she was in Emma's place. For her own sake, she pushed the memory away.

She stepped into the room quietly, gently sitting down at Henry's side. She watched his chest rise and lower as he breathed. She wondered what she would've done if he had stopped for good that day.

Regina tenderly combed through his hair with her hand, her thumb brushing over his cheek. He stirred, but did not wake, and Regina pulled her hand away. She did not see that Emma had opened her eyes, that she had been awake long enough to see her as she tacitly made her goodbye.

"Hey," Emma whispered softly to Regina. "There's room if you like." She meant it in jest but Regina was not amused.

"I'm going. Don't wake him." She got up to leave the room.

Emma sat upright. "What- wait a minute!"

Regina shushed her from the hallway and Emma grumbled, leaving the bed as quietly as she could, then went after Regina.

"What do you mean going?" Emma demanded, grabbing Regina by the arm.

Regina glared at her, already tired of this hindrance. She shook Emma's hand away. "I'm going to make a negotiation, like I intended to. I'll let my mother have her way on the grounds that you and Henry are sent back to Storybrooke."

"What? No!" Emma protested.

"Don't tell me you prefer living in this world when there's no one in it. Stop being foolish, I will go."

"I'm not letting you go back to that psycho."

Regina laughed sardonically. "And so what? I'll stay where I obviously don't belong? I've lost, Miss Swan. I have lost my entire life. Now I choose to admit it."

Emma groaned in frustration. "But-no. Okay, listen," she said, her hands up to tell Regina to wait. "But let's say you haven't exactly lost."

"What are you talking about? I don't have time for this." Regina turned to walk away, but Emma stayed persistent, and got in her way, her hands on her arms again.

"Just come with me, please."

"For the last time I-"

"Please. Before you decide anything. Just one thing I need to show you. Okay?"

Regina stared down at Emma, but found that it had no effect. It never really did. She sighed and gave in. "Fine."

Emma took her to the room where she'd left the knapsack. As Emma had expected, it was still in bigger chest in the corner, covered by a cloth. Regina stood at the doorway, eyeing her suspiciously.

"What are you doing?"

"Just shh."

Emma sat down in front of the chest, lifted the cloth and opened it, taking out the bag.

Regina felt something internally, and that's when she realized what Emma was trying to show her. "You didn't-"

"Oh, but I kind of did," Emma said with a bit of triumph in her voice as she took out the smaller red and white chest from inside the bag. She did not open it. Instead she laid it on her lap, looking up at Regina, who right now was in awe. Her eyes did not move away from the chest as she took a seat on the floor. Emma scooted to face her and put the chest midway between them, as if the honor should go to Regina.

"I don't know if it's enough to have the upperhand in this kind of shit situation," Emma said. "But it's a big step, right?"

Regina touched the lid and felt the rhythmic beating. She removed it, and there it was. Her heart.

She looked up to meet Emma's gaze. "How did you know about this?"

Emma paused, and swallowed. Her eyes told it all. It held guilt and fear and disgust at her own self.

Regina sneered darkly, looking back down at her heart and gently picking it up. "I think my question should be rephrased: how else?"

"I'm sorry. It's just the things that Cora said, it made me lose it a little. "

"Well that wouldn't be the first time my mother tried to have someone hurt me," Regina said in a low voice, barely bordering a whisper.

She concentrated on her heart. It felt so weak, so fragile, yet so hardened by the years of hatred and cold blooded treachery done in its absence. It was so strange to feel something that was supposed to be inside you beating against your own hand. You could feel it, really feel it, as if it had never left. Yet it was so wrong, so foreign.

"Well," Emma started. "What are you waiting for? You can put it back in, right?"

The thought repulsed Regina. She brought her eyes to Emma in disapproval. "No. I can't."

"Why?"

"Because if I do there's no telling what will happen." Regina looked down at her pathetic organ, pitying it. "This heart no longer belongs to me. It's lost its way and so have I. This is my own personal poison apple.

"Emma, I truly appreciate your gesture. If only for a night, I'll be spared. But when my mother finds out this is missing she'll want it back. So that means I will have to go."

She placed the heart back into the chest and closed it, but she did not get up and instead sat there.

"Please don't," Emma finally said. "We still have a lot to talk about."

"I imagine we do." The familiar exchange was caught by both.

"Henry knew you were going to leave."

"How?"

"Hell if I know. But he doesn't want you to."

Regina sighed, another ironic lift of the corners of her lips on her face. She looked away from Emma and into some arbitrary space. Her eyes were glazed by threatening tears. "I didn't want him to come. Not only because there would be a chance I'd lose him for good here but that it would also keep me from giving in to my mother. It makes it that much harder to give him up when he's right there."

Emma lifted her knees up to her chest and hugged them. She looked intently at Regina, and did not begin her question until she returned her gaze.

"What did Cora do to you?"

"What didn't she do?"

Emma internally cringed, then elaborated. "I mean a while ago. After you came back from your fighting. You haven't used magic once since you came and that was some real bad mood you had."

"I believe any minute with my mother would put you into 'some real bad mood' quite fast," Regina quipped. Then in a more serious tone, she went on: "My mother cast a disarming curse. As if I weren't burdened by other curses. In short, Miss Swan, I can't use my magic. If I do, there is a price. And that price is the past."

Emma wanted an elaboration on what she meant by "the price is the past", but from how Regina swallowed and could no longer keep eye contact with Emma, she could discern exactly what it was.

She could ask no more questions for fear of hurting Regina any further. She was not excused for all she had put her and her family through, not by a longshot. Regina was still responsible and had to have a hand in cleaning up her mess. Forgiveness, however, was not out of the question. Emma asked no more, but only had one thing to say to Regina for tonight.

"Stay."

This time, Regina did not protest.


	5. Chapter 5

**author's note:** Sorry for the long wait! It took me a while to figure out where I wanted to go with this story (and honestly I'm still figuring it out heh), but well, here it is.

* * *

**In the Flicker: Chapter 5**

* * *

It was hard to adjust. Mary Margaret Blanchard was dead. The simple and reserved schoolteacher that resided in Storybrooke had ceased to exist, and in her stead came Snow White, resurrected from the curse, but still not quite the same. She had this woman's memories, remembered them as if they had actually been there her whole life, and it was in such stark contrast with the life that had gone down with her when Regina had enacted the curse.

It had been about two days since Cora had taken Emma into the other world, and a day since Regina left without a proper explanation other than she was placing Snow in charge. She mentioned that Henry would be placed in her care, but he never showed. James felt that he needed to be reported missing, but Snow had told him that it wasn't necessary. She knew exactly where he was.

Snow currently was sitting in the sheriff's office. The town hall was rummaged down, either on purpose or by accident, though Regina's house remained untouched to many people's surprise. She had papers in front of her, of all the names in Storybrooke with their photographs and profiles. Simple sorting out and familiarizing with the population needed to be done, as well as sending out Charming and his small force to anyone who would now have magic and would surely misuse it. Several early incidents included the shattering of the Storybrooke aquarium. ("Must be Morgana," Snow had concluded, very irritated with the issue.)

Red had just entered the room, setting a box of lunch for Snow on the desk and pulled up a chair to sit beside her. She wore her red cloak as if she had never taken it off in 28 years. "Hey. How's the work coming along?"

"Ridiculously," Snow said, finally setting down the papers and reaching for the food. It was a normal sandwich, but somehow seeing it for the first time as Snow White caught her off guard.

"Anything on Henry or," Red hesitated at the name, "Regina?"

"Nothing."

"And Emma?"

Snow did not reply, but chewed on the sandwich. It had egg in it, and it reminded her of the first time she'd ever met Red. That was over 30 years ago.

"It's unfair," she started, looking at Red with that sad smile she always had as Mary Margaret. "I didn't get to raise my child. She grew up alone and when I finally had her, I had no way of knowing."

Red placed a hand on Snow's shoulder, and Snow automatically put her hand over hers. That hadn't been done for over 30 years too.

"I missed you," Snow said.

"Me, too," Red replied. "That curse really put it into us. Everything is so weird. You'd think everything would be back to the way it was, but it feels different, it feels sadder. Like we've won but not really."

"Yeah. It does."

"So what do we do?"

Snow sighed, putting the sandwich back in the box, unable to stomach any more food under the stress. "We do what we've always done. We keep going."

* * *

Regina had fallen asleep on a chair beside Henry and Emma's bed. After her talk with Emma, she had insisted that Regina stayed in their room as well, and after brief refusal, took up the creaky poor excuse of a chair. It was a tacit win-win situation: Regina felt like she was protecting Henry, and Emma felt like she was protecting her.

But when she woke up, the bed was empty, the sheets not made.

"Henry?" she called, rubbing her eyes and trying to stretch away the strains in her muscles from sleeping uncomfortably. "Miss Swan?"

She put on her blazer (which, she was slightly appalled at for in 28 years never had she worn the same thing day and night and morning again) that hung behind the chair and made her way out up on the upper floors.

Regina called Henry and Emma's name, each time with more alarm and each time with no response from either of the two. Then a thought had entered Regina's mind, and it was enough to throw her into the beginning of a frenzy.

She was running around the castle now, ignoring the rooms in shambles from the aftermath of the curse. The galleries echoed of the heels of her shoes clacking endlessly as she stormed in search for the two of them.

Maybe Cora had taken them. Maybe they had left her. Maybe they realized that they were safest where Regina was not. Maybe Emma was lying to her when she implied that Regina had a chance to redeem herself. Or maybe they were not there at all and Regina had been seeing everything, a cruel hallucination.

Her fearful thoughts were put quiet when she saw the gate to the formal gardens open. She immediately rushed over and she found them there, by the fruit trees.

"Henry!" she called to them, and he waved to her. Regina was relieved, but that did not stop her from stomping toward their direction in angry strides.

"These look pretty good," Emma said as she picked a small blue-purple fruit from a bush.

"No, those are poisonous," Henry warned, taking them from her hand.

"Really?" she replied skeptically.

"Want me to demonstrate?"

"Oh-no thanks, kid."

"What do you think you're doing?" Regina said irritably. Somehow it was Emma cutting down her apple tree all over again but in a very different context, one that Regina didn't think she'd ever be in.

"Ever think we need to you know, eat?" Emma defended, biting into an apple that they had previously picked. "I don't even want to know what's been laying around in the royal kitchen for 28 years."

"It hasn't been 28 years in this..."-she digressed-"Don't do that again!"

"Do what?"

"Leave my sight."

Emma opened her mouth to comment on how neither she nor Henry were her property or something along those lines until she processed that for a moment Regina was actually scared shitless that they were gone.

"Sorry." Emma sighed and Regina's anger dissipated as she collected herself.

Henry held up an apple to Regina. "Breakfast?"

/ / / / /

Emma and Regina sat on the garden benches as Henry enjoyed the garden. There were flowers and plants he'd never seen before, colors he couldn't exactly name. In parts of the garden, the plant life was damaged because of the force of the curse when it had swept the entire kingdom up. He imagined that they all were, but they managed to get themselves back together. That was the fascinating part to Henry, that nature didn't need anyone but itself to be repaired. Grass continued to grow, flowers bloomed with no command from mankind.

"So what's the plan?" Emma asked Regina.

"I don't know. You essentially ruined my primary plan."

"You had no back-up? No plan B? At all?"

"Actually yes, it was to leave you here in the clutches of my mother. She'd have removed you from the picture and Henry would be mine."

"Very funny."

"You shouldn't be surprised to know that it was a legitimate option."

Emma sighed, but had a sort of smile on her face. "No, I shouldn't." After a moment she added a little more seriously, "and I don't suppose I should forgive you for the plans you did or attempted to actualize."

"No. No you shouldn't."

"So why didn't you?"

"What?"

"Leave me."

"Your number one fan insisted."

They both took a moment to focus on Henry as he basically laid down on the grass next to the flowerbeds, completely out of tune with the current situation and engrossed with the beauty of nature. The conversation did not continue, mainly because there was nothing else to be said. This boy was what connected the two of them and that's what gave them a common goal. It pitted them against one another nearly all of the time, but in some cases, like the mine, like the turnover, and like this - they were on the same side.

"So I was born here," Emma finally said, looking at the castle walls, old and beaten, windows shattered in. She was a bit awkward-never did she really see herself having a normal conversation (however completely abnormal the situation itself was) with Regina. "It doesn't feel like home."

Regina hardly thought about that, that this experience would probably have a profound effect on Emma.

"Cause it isn't. Not entirely."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You're basically looking at a post-disaster world. Until you set foot in Storybrooke this place had actually ceased to exist. Only several months ago did it blink back into life and time started moving again."

"Whoa there, getting all timey-wimey on me right now. Maybe want to save that explanation for later."

Regina ignored her. "Add the fact that nobody is here. Not a soul but us, and somewhere out there my mother. Without people magic becomes a dead presence, a weapon with no wielder, a light with no candle..."

Emma did not reply. She noticed Regina's fingers playing with the fabric over where her heart should've been. She was about to open her mouth to say something until something caught their attention.

"Help!" Henry shouted, wild vines assuming life and wrapping around his wrists and waist.

"Oh my god," Emma exclaimed and ran for Henry.

"No, wait, don't!" Regina called after her as she followed. The flowers that Henry was admiring not too long ago had spoiled in color, their stigmas turning into tongues of a snake and the anthers into tiny fangs. Henry was held midair, the vines which had been harmless stems threatened to fling him into the sky.

Emma tried to grab hold of the stem-vine-thing but was only met with writhing that shook Henry in the air.

"Careful!" Regina warned behind Emma.

"Yeah, I should follow your example," Emma grumbled, trying at the vine once more. This time a neck of petals lunged after her, planting a shallow but painful bite into Emma's ankle.

"Fucking little shit!" she hissed as she grabbed it by the peduncle and tore away the flower head from its stem, effectively killing it.

The vines flung Henry to and fro but did not drop him yet.

"That's enough!" Regina shouted as she pushed her hand forward and released a ring of waves, and in an instant the plants dropped dead. Before Henry had hit the ground she lowered her hand, allowing the magical force to set him down slowly onto his feet. But as she did this something came to her eyes-she remembered her mother, holding her hand threateningly up at her as she squirmed in the belts in mid-air, and then her mother freeing her, lowering her hand to place her back onto the grass with a gentleness that she had never gotten. This memory had stung.

She was snapped out of this vision when Henry had got a hold of her hand. "Mom?"

His eyes glistened with inquiry and concern. Regina did not realize that what she was feeling was evident on her face.

"Oh," she said in a different tone contrary to her face as she completely changed gears. She bent down and picked up Henry's wrists, slightly pink. "Are you okay? Did it hurt you?"

Henry shook his head.

Emma attempted to rise to attend to Henry as well but was stopped by a sharp sting. Her cry of pain was anything but stifled.

"Let me see that." Regina sat beside Emma and gestured for her to lift the hem of her jeans and remove her shoes. They were not the boots that Emma was wearing when she had been taken by Cora.

"Are these mine?" she asked, but did not get her answer as there was a more important issue at hand. Emma's skin had gone purple, her veins turned an icy white around the teeth marks of the flower.

"Oh god," Emma said, and the familiar feeling of disgust below her stomach had emerged once more. "Will this kill me?"

Regina touched her finger over the purple skin, finding it to be rough and hard. However feather light this touch was, it had sparked tremendous waves of pain through Emma's system.

"What the fuck was with that bite?" she half asked, half yelled.

"I wish you wouldn't have such vulgar vocabulary in front of our son."

"Well excuse me!" Emma replied angrily, the aftershocks of the sting making it last laps around her body.

"Will she be okay?" Henry asked worriedly, keeping at a safe distance for the wound had also triggered a weak stomach.

"Not if treated immediately, no. Hold still."

Regina held her hand over the wound, careful not to make direct contact with it. Emma looked on confused for a while, but then realized what Regina was going to do.

"You used magic to save Henry."

"Yes. I did."

"I thought you couldn't."

"I could. I just said it wouldn't be pleasant."

Emma's hand took hold of Regina's wrist. "Then don't."

Regina's eyes narrowed at her, and she took that as a signal to stop arguing lest Regina use her magic for the opposite purpose of what she intended.

She let go of her wrist, and Regina resumed. A blue glow emitted from the palm of her hand and danced its way onto Emma's skin, rushing like a ring of water and evaporating all the pain. The jarring colors had faded back to its natural tone, and the tiny holes where teeth had sunk through were closed.

While this was happening Emma kept her eyes on Regina's face, focusing on how each second had gone by, her brow had furrowed deeper, her frown wider, and her eyes wetter. When she was done, Emma placed her hand over Regina's, over where she had just saved her from what might have been a very painful death. This had made her lift her head to meet Emma's eyes.

"You alright?" she asked her. Regina nodded, swallowing and hiding her face to wipe at the tears that had formed.

"That settles it, then," she said as she collected herself for the umpteenth time that morning.

"Settles what?" Henry asked.

"We're not safe here. My mother knows where we are and we need to go."

"But where?"

Regina stood up and brushed herself off. She looked down at Henry and placed a hand tenderly atop his head, brushing his loose hair. "Where in fairy tale land have you always wanted to go?"

Henry's eyes lit up in wonder as he thought of the possibilities. "I... I don't know."

"Well let's decide that later," Emma grunted as she stood up. "I need a bath. I stink of evil mothers, old houses, and snake plants."

* * *

When Regina was 10 years old, she did not live in a palace. She had a loving father, but a strict mother and a struggle. She did not have what Snow White had.

She had no friends, no court jesters, no maids to speak to her. But anyone she had come across, she was kind to. Regularly she visited the meadows, watching people on their horses. To them she was just a little lady, the daughter of a family who was honorably making progress in class position. She was not treated like Snow, not like a princess, but she felt no need to be addressed as such. A lady was made with manners. That was the saying her mother went by.

On some days the stable man would let her ride a horse when her mother was not around. He had caught her longing glance as his masters rode for sport, and in this gesture he addressed her wishes.

The first time Regina rode, she had no idea how hard it would be. The stable man's son, Daniel, was the one to calm the horse when it had gotten too aggressive. That little boy, only about 12 years old, acting so brave and manly when he too was visibly afraid, had caught Regina's attention. She had made a friend. Little did she know that this was how it was going to play out when she would meet Snow White many years later.

For a while, it was her and this stable man's son as he supervised her, making sure that the young horse would not react violently again. The only things they spoke of were the proper ways of handling the horse, posture, and commands. They spoke little of anything else, but that was okay for the both of them. It was enough. It was pleasant.

But nothing could be hid with Cora.

"Do you know how dangerous that is? That stable man could've hurt you! That horse could've hurt you!"

"But mother, I just wanted to ride. Why can't I?"

"You will earn the luxury to horse ride when you act like a proper lady! Ladies are made with manners, not sneaking off behind their mothers back to go wherever they please! Is that understood?"

"Yes..."

"Yes, _who_?"

Her mother had gotten dangerously close, and Regina felt the magical force prick at her skin.

"Yes, mother," she had almost sobbed. "I'll be good."


	6. Chapter 6

_note: sorry for the humongous wait. School and season 2, you know. But I've picked it back up and I am excited to fill in this dreadful winter hiatus with fanfictiony goodness._

* * *

**In the Flicker: Chapter 6**

* * *

Cora remembered when Regina was this close from birth. It was painful, terrifying, and worst of all, alone. Her husband was not there, the King was not there, nor the King's silly prince, George, who had promised her release before her child would come into the world. They were all cowards, and if not cowards, they were liars.

When Regina was out she cried. She cried loud enough for it to echo up and down the tower, for the guards to finally make their way to tend to the bleeding woman next to a bloody child settled in a dirty cloth and a pile of golden straws. And when Regina started to cry Cora found it hard to distinguish it from her own frantic screams. It was just her and her daughter, just the two of them from the start in a vicious, horrible world that if they were not equally vicious and horrible, they would never survive.

* * *

Her castle. He wanted to go to her castle. He wanted to see where it started, where Regina had lived for 10, lonely, constricting years, where she had killed Snow's father, where she had made the palace her own.

Regina was reluctant. But all Henry wanted to do, besides get home, was to know about his own mother. So that was where they were going to go.

Emma had voiced her doubts about the safety of the trek, the location, and the general prospect of being out in the open with lots of other potentially demonized plant life. But they were traveling via the Dwarf tunnels, with fairy diamonds and dust. Not to mention cool pick-axes. Henry was excited about that, but neither Regina nor Emma were keen on handing him any weapon of any sort. ("Plus," Emma joked, "swinging sharp objects around is more my thing.")

Henry seemed to be intoxicated with the sight of bright, purple diamonds covering entire surfaces of the walls, fairy dust debris floating through the air. Regina was more repulsed being inside the quarters of beings born to labor.

Funny thing, it was. The dwarves were probably inside the Storybrooke mines, adhering to the same system that hampered any kind of development or outside purpose to their creation. Sometimes she wondered if they knew of their captivity in their own native land and how foolish they were for returning to it.

Then she thought of herself and how that was the case in many, many ways.

"Hey, you okay?" Emma waved a hand in front of Regina's dazed face. She was doing that thing again, staring out into nothingness as if that nothingness contained a portal to every bad thing that ever happened in her life.

Regina shook her head to ground herself back to reality. "I'm fine. Perhaps being around this much magic is hazardous."

"Doesn't look fun," Emma commented, being careful with the torch that lit their way through the mine.

"It might for him." Regina nodded almost affectionately toward Henry, who, ever the child, was blowing the loose fairy dust from their larger stones, creating a small cloud of glitter that rose and then delicately fell again.

"You know there are many things you can do with fairy dust," Regina directed the subject, turning to run her fingers through the smooth surface of the diamonds.

"Like?" Henry asked, his curiosity piqued.

"In the raw, you could use them to temporarily daze someone. Crushed dragon egg mineral and the waters of the enchanted lake creates an impenetrability potion. The right rocks and the right sap from the right tree could produce a powerful growth potion. The blood of two individuals could create a connection spell."

"Maybe it's also our key to getting back to Storybrooke?" Emma asked.

Regina shook her head. "If there is anything fairy dust can't do," she said almost with contempt, her hand pulling away from the stones as if it had stung her, "it's actually help people who need it the most."

* * *

This was enough. It had been three days, almost. How long would it take to return? To escape Cora and escape the other world? Why had no one found any solution after all this time?

This would be a lot easier if Henry were here. He knew before the rest of them did, he would've thought of something. In real-world sensibilities, it was ridiculous for Snow White to need a ten-year-old's guidance, but she wasn't from the real world. None of them were.

"Charming," she said when he came in through the door, sheriff's badge worn on his belt. It suited him, yet Snow remembered Mary Margaret thinking it was best on Emma. "We need to find them."

"I know."

"Of course you do. But knowing isn't getting us anywhere. What if Emma is dead? What if Henry, what if..." Snow's composure began to disintegrate at the thought of her child and grandchild perishing at the hands of Cora.

He pulled Snow into his arms. "Remember," he said, "when you would have nightmares? How when you woke up, I lit a candle for you?"

"Yes," she muffled into his shirt. She remembered it well, to her surprise, and she remembered it with affection. "But I don't know where you're going with this."

"They're lost but we'll be their beacon of light. They're coming home and they're coming home because we'll lead the way."

"And how are we going to do that? How is there any hope anymore?"

He pulled away slightly to lift her chin. "We found a lead. They call him Jefferson"-Snow's eyes lit in recognition of the name-"and they say he has a portal to the enchanted forest."

"We can find them and bring them back. But what if it's too late?"

"We need to have believe in them, Snow. Like I believe in you. In us. That's the kind of faith that runs in this family. And we're going to go ahead and be one no matter what it takes."

Snow laid her head on his shoulder, taking his words for comfort and promise. After a while, she said something that Charming was not so comfortable hearing, nor was Snow herself, but she said it anyway because it was on her mind ever since she saw Cora's return: "Then Regina is part of it, too. We can't let Cora take her."

* * *

Regina did not realize she was screaming until Henry's hands were on her shoulders, trying to shake her awake and until she heard how mangled and disturbing her voice sounded echoing through the mine.

"Mom! Wake up!"

She took a sharp intake of breath that sealed off the horrible sounds. She was clenching Henry's hand, that small, dear hand that pulled her away from the nightmares. Yet they were still here; she was living them every second. Darkness was here as it was yesterday, and the day before and the day before that.

"God, what was that?" Emma asked, kneeling in front of Regina, swaying the torch left and right to make sure Regina's eyes followed it and that she was properly conscious.

"Where is it?" Regina asked, panic in her eyes as she scrambled toward Emma's bag.

"What?" Henry was startled at his mothers behavior, and didn't know what to do as she pulled out a white and red chest, did not open it, but instead cried with her head down, away from him and away from the world.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

"Your...heart?"

"Yes," Regina answered Henry, the chest held close to her. She thumbed the metal, feeling the rhythmic beating of her own heart inside.

She wished she didn't have to tell him. But she also wished he didn't have to see her that way just several minutes ago, completely unhinged and afraid and vulnerable. And then there was the curse, the one that Regina told Emma about but not him.

Emma rubbed Henry's back. This was not any easy for him. He'd just learned that his mother was missing her own heart through his whole life and he would've never guessed.

"Maybe we should not stop to rest here and go straight to the castle," Emma said.

Regina nodded. She sniffed and returned to her normal energy, picking up the pieces by herself and for herself.

She handed the chest to Emma. "I trust you'll continue to take care of this."

Emma met Regina's eyes. They were brown and plain but beautiful. "I'll guard it with my life, your highness."

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

They continued to walk through the tunnels, Regina leading the way and Emma holding the torch. Nothing was said, and the only sounds heard were the dancing of the flame on the torch and their footsteps, a rhythm of dress shoes clacking, boots thumping, and little sneakers making short and gentle strides.

Regina didn't tell them she was using magic. She didn't tell them that she actually did not know the underground matrix well enough to know where it went. The images of the path were overlayed with the same nightmares that came coming for her, that actually plagued her throughout the years residing as Snow's stepmother.

But she wasn't good at hiding much. She used to, back when she was just Mayor Mills trying to hide a secret from the whole world. But now she wasn't hiding from the world. She was hiding from the two people who probably had the most ability to see right through her, to see that her fear leaked through her fingertips.

Then a small, soft hand brushed against hers. Henry had caught up to her, and he knew-he knew but didn't know how, but he knew that there was something he needed to do and it was to take his mother's hand and walk beside her. Regina's fingers were tense, softening only a little, but she felt ten times more secure. She looked down at him, and he smiled, really smiled at her, full of assurance and promise. They walked on, and somewhere along the way, Emma's hand had slipped into Regina's free one, and neither knew how exactly they got there but neither were complaining.

Perhaps, Regina thought, hiding was an unnecessary task for just this one journey.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

It was raining when they finally reached the castle, and the flames of the torch went out as one gives in to a losing battle. The conifers and pines seemed to stretch out forever, disappearing only at the end of the horizon, and the rainy fog that had encircled the enchanted forest. They could hear the water rushing down from the mountains, a slush sound that reminded Henry of blowing bubbles into his soda through a straw. Above the mass of saturated green towered the castle, its flying buttresses protruding and piercing the atmosphere above it, almost licking the rainclouds. It had lost its hint of blue, the architecture looking duller than it last did. The waters did nothing to renew its luster.

The sight of it made Regina sick.

"What demented architect designed that?" Emma asked, her voice nearly being lost to the insistent rain.

"The King's," Regina said plainly, and led the way. Emma stumbled forward on the slippery muds and grasses as Henry hunched under the coats both his mothers sacrificed to keep him dry. "We should be safe here for the time being."

"What's that thing on top? Is that a chicken?"

"The Golden Cockerel, Miss Swan. When enemies are nearby it'll sound."

"What, like Rimsky-Korsakov shit?"

"Language. And look at you, all cultured."

It was cold and dank inside, and making a fire was going to be harder than getting Henry to bed after he'd eaten sweets on a night that he wasn't supposed to. After all this time, however, Regina had still remembered every inch of this dreadful palace. She knew every room, every corridor. When she was still queen she knew every guard. Their names, their habits, their roots.

And she also knew where the seamstresses kept all their cloths, where the maids would tuck away new to-be-used sheets. Where she kept all her furs and all the things she never want to see herself in in Storybrooke.

Henry was wrapped in nearly five inches of these sheets and furs as he laid asleep, tired from the journey, in a bed that used to belong to Regina- the room she had after she requested to not sleep in the King's bed. ("That room is off limits," Regina had said to Emma and Henry, "No exceptions.")

Emma was beside him, and again Regina took post in a chair.

"We should trade spots if you're not going to take the other side," Emma said. "You need to rest."

"Nowadays there is no such thing," Regina replied offhandedly, not aware of how painful it might've sounded to Emma given what she knew. "Henry hasn't said a word since we were in the mine."

"Well it's tough, you know. The things he knows and the things he's found out in the past three days are things that no ten year old kid should have to carry."

There was a tinge of guilt in Regina's face as she lowered her eyes to the stone floor. "I know."

Emma observed her in the dark. The rain poured and poured outside, but it didn't overpower the underlying beat heard from the chest inside the drawer. Everything about Regina had changed since Emma first met her, and she didn't know whether it was necessarily a good thing, a push in the right direction, or a deep trough that couldn't be overcome. She'd seen more humanity in Regina than ever these days, yet if it came at a price, if it was at the expense of Regina's very will to _live_, then what was it really worth? Could you ever really put a price tag on these kinds of things?

"When he wakes up he'll be asking questions. He'll want you to talk, because you don't do that very often. And when you do, you speak but you don't really say anything."

"Funny. He's never wanted to know anything about me before."

"Well he does now, and he feels really bad that it's come this late. He's your son. Be a little forgiving."

"It's all right. There's nothing to forgive." Regina paused for a while. "So he's told you what he thinks but not me?"

Emma wanted to laugh a little, but not to ridicule Regina, not at all. "Like I said, it's tough. He's just a kid. You can't expect him to be a master at communication. It's not like he has any precedent. We adults are pretty crap at it, too."

"You seem to be doing a fine job at it."

"Well thanks. But it'd be easier if I didn't have to play messenger between the two of you."

Regina nodded, and pulled a cover over her. "You should take one, too. The rain might not stop and it may get colder."

"I'll be fine."

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

She woke up screaming again. She had a dream that the bed was empty, and when she ran out into the gardens they were not there. The Golden Cockerel screeched violently atop the spire where it was perched, but the sound rang in Regina's head no matter how far away she got. And she saw Snow White, the little girl on the horse, and she saw Leopold, a jeweled crown atop his bare head, a gentle face but a firm grip and she couldn't take it, she wanted to leave and never come back.

But before those horrid screams could wake Henry there were red leather arms around her, yellow hair brushing against her face and a lull in her voice that didn't take it all away entirely, but made it easier for Regina to let go and cry.

And from a long, long distance, from where Cora sat in her wooden throne, from where she waited for everything to unfold, she could hear them. She could hear Regina hurt and she smiled, yet there were tears in her eyes, tears that harkened back to the day of blood and golden straw. She ignored the wet on her face as if they had never once been there.


	7. Chapter 7

_note: thanks for all your reads and reviews! I missed this fic beyond belief and I'm glad that you did too. Cheers!_

* * *

**In the Flicker: Chapter 7**

* * *

Regina had forgotten how much she was supposed to hate Emma Swan. She hated everything that she was, everything she did, how she thought she had the business of coming and staying in Storybrooke, the gall she had in trying to take Henry away from her. She hated how self-righteous she got, no doubt genetic inheritance from her parents. She hated how stupid she was to get tangled in the conflict between her and her mother, to steal her heart from her mother because she thought it was the right thing to do, to be the first thing that consoled Regina when she had awoken in panic and tears. Nothing in Regina's life was any of Emma's concern but she made it her concern, and she hated that. Yet she couldn't bring herself to tell Emma to stop.

Emma waited until Regina had calmed down as she eased into consciousness. Regina was covering her face with her hands, curling up at Emma's awkward grip on her upper arms. Behind her Henry stirred from his layers of fur, disturbed by the commotion.

"What's going on?" he asked, only half awake.

"Shh, go back to sleep," Emma said softly. Henry nestled into the blankets, speaking no more.

Emma pulled Regina up from her chair. "Come on."

"No, don't leave Henry alone-"

"He'll be fine. We need to talk."

She took Regina out into the corridors, still cold and dank and unwelcoming as ever. Regina found herself standing closer to Emma than she would have liked. She looked at her face and saw lines under Emma's eyes.

"You haven't slept."

"Yeah. You started talking in your sleep, I decided to sit in front of you in case... well, in case _that_ happened."

Regina frowned. "What was I saying?"

Emma's mouth was smiling but her eyes were sad and pained. "Things I hope I never have to hear again."

She had been talking about the King.

"Maybe it was a bad idea to come here," Emma said. "We could find another place to stay. Take that Russian chicken with us."

Regina shook her head, arms crossed and face cast downward. "This is as safe as safe gets, unfortunately."

Emma looked at her intently. She wanted to say something, something that she was thinking of ever since Regina told her about it. She didn't think she would ever have to actually voice it, actually request what she was about to request, but things were getting dire and it was starting to hurt more and more to see Regina this way.

"Let me have the curse."

"What?"

"I don't know, transfer it to me somehow. Is that possible?"

"Yes, but," her hesitance scattered and recollected into firm anger, "No. You are not doing that for me."

"And why not? Are you really getting possessive about something that is hurting the living shit out of you?"

"No!" Her voice rose, but then took it down a level when she realized that it echoed through the halls. "There is no telling what it could do to you and whether it would really work. Henry needs at least one functioning mother and that's not going to happen if we're both in the corner screaming for help."

"What could it possibly do to me? I don't use magic, so I might have the curse but it probably won't even affect me. For pete's sake, Regina, just let people help you for once!"

Regina stepped back, her expression turning from anger to hurt. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, and that's when Emma realized she had overstepped it a bit, that her reaction was because no one had tried to help Regina in her life and to suggest that it was because she never let anyone was cruel.

And then Emma Swan stopped moving.

"Miss Swan?" Regina waited for her to do something, to blink, to breathe, but she was as still as a marble sculpture. "Emma?"

Then the Golden Cockerel was sounding again, screeches of warning, and Regina wondered if this was another part of her nightmare.

"We have to go, she's here." She attempted to reach out to her, but was stung by an invisible air that encased Emma. An immobility spell.

"Henry!" Regina called, running past Emma and toward their room, but she herself was frozen in her tracks.

"My, my, such a strong and kind heart," an echo of a sickly sweet syrup voice emerged from the end of the hall.

Regina's stomach suddenly felt tight. She didn't want to turn around.

The clicks and clacks of Cora's shoes came closer, an eerie rhythm to the cries of the cockerel, until she was directly behind Regina. She didn't understand why her mother had to do this. Why she would have to instill this fear and sickness into her own daughter and why she would enjoy it.

"Well? She wants the curse. Let her have it."

Regina felt a clawed hand settle gently on her waist as Cora turned her around to face Emma, an outstretched hand guiding her own, as Regina found herself repeating the incantations and whispers of the truly dark that came from her mother's lips.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

Emma shook the blur and tension away, feeling as if she had been standing still for way too long. Regina was in front of her as she was before she was overtaken by something Emma could only explain as the effects of being awake too long.

"As I was saying," she continued, even though that too was lost in a fog.

"No," Regina interrupted, uncharacteristically soft toward Emma. She looked downward and took Emma's hand. "Just forget about it."

* * *

"For the last time, my hats don't work.." Jefferson was getting quite tired of this, of this man who sauntered into his home with a regal air that did not suit him as well as it did some other despicable royals.

He was not particularly a fan of this Prince Charming. Especially since upon his arrival he had swung a fist across his face. Apparently he didn't like that he had kidnapped his wife and kept her hostage while he forced his daughter to fix his hat at gunpoint.

"There has been nothing but a resurgence of magic in Storybrooke," Charming insisted, getting uncomfortably close to Jefferson's face. "And you're telling me that you have none?"

"If you had given me the time to explain," Jefferson steps forward, irate and annoyed and if Charming could ever get over his self-absorbed hero act then he'd also see that Jefferson was also in pain. "I remembered everything while all of you were running around like Regina's puppets. But that didn't spare me from the strings. She made sure that I didn't get my hands on anything. The hat is gone. The last time I had it, it was to get that poisoned apple that nearly killed your grandson. So you know what, Prince Charming," by this time Jefferson had effectively backed Charming toward the front door, "you are neither prince nor charming. Get out of my house."

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

Snow White had no idea how Regina ran an entire town by herself and one sheriff. Then again the streets were not wreaking havoc, and Regina never did need more than one jail cell. Having only that one cell was becoming a very big problem.

When Charming arrived in the mayor's office, he had to make special effort not to grab the vases and throw them against the wall. (Some things Emma Swan did were just inherited, it seemed.)

"No hat?"

"No goddamned hat," James growled. He tried to find zen as he took a seat across from his wife, who was giving him a pointed look.

"Your knuckles are bruised."

"I..." he began, looking down, "may have been under the influence of what you had told me about him."

"Charming!" Snow yelled, slamming the pen onto the desk. It startled the both of them. "James," she said again, collecting herself. "We are the only leaders this town has. Be one."

"How can I? Our daughter is out there, again, an entire world across from us. How can I be calm? How can _you_ be so calm?"

"Because if I'm not I will lose it!"

There was a crackling silence, and in a matter of seconds James had made his way around the desk, apologizing into her hair as she shook against him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'll listen. Who's our next lead?" He brushed the short hair out of her eyes.

Snow sniffled. "I think, Sidney Glass, maybe. He was a genie in our world."

"What, has he got a lamp?"

"No," a voice boomed suddenly. There was a glint in the looking glass across the office, and immediately Snow leapt from her seat and ran to it. In the little, practically unnoticeable mirror that hung on the wall, was a face. Sidney's face. "Probably something better."

* * *

Chimera didn't taste disgusting. Off-putting, maybe, but not disgusting. And it was all they had. Regina promised that they wouldn't contract a disease, and that promise was green light enough.

None of them spoke more than two words to each other as they ate. Regina was on edge, using magic and not feeling any pain, waiting for Emma to scream and waiting for Henry to pick up on just something already. At the same time, she couldn't tell him that her mother had cursed her and had now cursed Emma. She couldn't bring herself to.

Emma didn't remember a thing. But she seemed and looked fine. Maybe she was right. Emma knew nothing about using magic, and she probably wasn't capable. So she would be safe, the host of an incompetent parasite.

And Regina would believe this if it hadn't been Cora herself that had given Emma what she asked for. No, Emma wouldn't be safe. And Cora knew that. She knew that when Emma was suffering while Regina was apparently free, Henry would know. Henry would tread into the waters of blaming Regina again, because it was something she would do. It was something Regina wanted to do ever since Emma got here. And because Regina would not have told him for fear of how he would take it, she would have exacerbated his suspicions. Like it all had been before.

Regina couldn't let that happen. Not when Henry was now taking her by the hand, having her show him all the rooms, the corridors, the history of every inch. It was something akin to confession for Regina. Every corner held a part of her long string of sins and unloading them to her son and Emma Swan of all people was highly inappropriate, but in telling them, in how they nodded and kept on, it felt like...

It felt like forgiveness.

And it felt great, so great that she almost forgot what the cause could ever be when Emma leaned on a wall, looking on with sad eyes and held breath.

"Mom?"

When Emma was unresponsive, Regina let go of Henry's hand and approached her. Emma didn't look Regina in the eye, but still onwards to that same nothingness.

"You gave me the curse didn't you," Emma whispered. It was a statement, not a question.

"Is that not what you asked for just an hour ago?"

Emma turned her head to face Regina, now angry. Her voice was in sharp staccato. "Well I would have liked to know exactly when and how you did it instead of-"

"Is everything okay?" Henry asked from behind them, only taking slow steps toward them.

"Yes," Regina lied, and she hated herself for it, "Miss Swan's just feeling a little unwell."

"I'll fucking say," Emma grunted underneath her breath.

And then there was a spark of magic that leaked from the walls. Neither Emma nor Henry could sense it, but Regina could, because she recognized and knew that presence like the back of her whited sepulcher hands when she was Queen.

"Emma Swan, did no one teach you proper language?"

"Fuck off, Sidney." Emma did a double take. "Sidney?!"

"Over here," he called, and the three of them rushed into the nearest room, where the large mirror perched itself on top of Regina's old vanity.

"I see you've escaped the sanitarium," Regina said flatly.

"Not much of an escape though, is it?" he said in equal tone. "I have a message from Snow White and Prince Charming."

"Really?" Henry ran up to the mirror. "What did they say? Are they going to get us out of here?"

"Ask them yourself," Sidney said, and his shaded face receded into a fog. That fog cleared from a mist of dull light blue to a window looking out to two distinct faces.

"Emma, Henry?" Snow White called to them.

Emma forgot her pains at the sight of two people who were not trying to kidnap her or cursing her without actual permission and stepped forward. Regina receded into the back where she could not be seen by the royal pair.

"You're all right," James said, a sigh of relief escaping him.

"Yeah," she replied, trying on a smile.

"We just wanted to make sure," Snow said, her fingers tracing the surface of the mirror as if she were actually touching Emma. "We'll find a way to bring you back, promise."

"How?" Henry asked. "Have you used my book? Can you use magic?"

"We might," James said.

"We're using a spell to get in contact right now," Snow explained. "But it won't last for very long. This is very much at Sidney's expense, actually. But you're okay and that's all we wanted to know. Now..." she hesitated. "Is Regina there?"

"Yes," Regina replied stiffly, not ready to nor willing to face Snow White at this time.

"I would like to talk to you. Alone, please."

Regina would sooner die. "Very well. But neither Henry nor Miss Swan can leave my vicinity."

Snow nodded. "Didn't ask for that."

Snow had made James leave, because she knew he was angry when he saw Regina. She knew he would act as he did with Jefferson and probably worse, and a broken mirror was no way to treat their only possible line of communication.

Regina sat at her vanity with Snow's image only about a foot away as they spoke in hushes.

"You're alive but not well."

"Thanks for that insight, Snow White."

Snow frowned. "What does Cora want?"

"For me to be her daughter again. Not so different from you when you think of it." Regina couldn't help but to elicit pain and anger from Snow. She liked to play the game of how fast it was to undo her composure. In fact this was probably the only thing that would keep Regina sane for a while.

"Regina, I have agreed to take you with them when we retrieve you from the Enchanted Forest."

"I don't _need_ your saving, Snow White," she hissed, and she thought how ridiculous she sounded, letting her pride and grudge stand in the way of something practical.

"Stop it, please," she finally gave way to the heavy load on her shoulders. "Both of our loved ones are at stake against someone we both don't particularly like."

Regina tightened her mouth. "Fine. What do you want?"

"I need to know where Jefferson's hat is."

"You wouldn't know a thing about using that."

"Well maybe you'd like to explain how once we find it."

"It's in the vault, underneath... underneath my father's grave. Keys are in the drawer to your left."

Snow disappeared from the view, coming forth again to show the keys in her hands. "Same keys you used to break in my apartment, I see."

"How observant you are."

The image started to wobble, like a penny dropped into a lake. The fog was returning, signalling the end of the spell. "Regina?"

"What." Leave it to Snow to feel the need for some sort of parting message.

"Watch over her. Henry is a given, so watch over her. The gods know she'd do the same for you."

Snow White's face disappeared and all that was left was Regina's reflection in the looking glass.

"I know," she whispered to no one in particular.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~

"Fuck," Emma cursed as she found herself on her knees, Henry trying to pull her up. Her blood burnt, and she didn't know why, for fuck's sake she didn't even know how to use magic, so why did it sting? Why did it feel like she was on fire?

"Mom? Mom are you alright?" Henry asked, panicked at Emma's apparent pain. "It wasn't the chimera we ate, was it? Mom told you not to eat too fast!"

Emma laughed, and then cried again. Her abdomen was tense and tight and felt like it was made out of stone.

"Mom, do something," Henry called for Regina, and she quickly made her way Emma.

She had Emma sit on her bottom and laid the back of her hand on Emma's forehead like she had done so for Henry when he would come home sluggish and sickly.

"I don't think this is a normal fever, Regina."

"Shh."

"Don't shush me!"

"Now is not the time for that!" Regina yelled in a volume she'd have preferred not to use, effectively silencing Emma.

But she couldn't keep quiet, she was constantly whimpering because she couldn't help it. Henry was behind her for her to lean back on. Poor boy was nearly getting crushed under the weight of her head.

Regina flipped her hand so that her palm was now covering Emma's head, and placed the other one atop her abdomen.

"Stop fidgeting," she commanded, "you'd think this was an epileptic rendition of the Dying Swan."

"Ha-ha," Emma said, feeling very far from ha-ha. "God, Regina, I'm seeing things."

"I said shh," Regina said urgently, only imagining what Emma's past could look like. "Breathe."

A blue glow emitted from both Regina's palms, and slowly Emma felt as if tiny fingers were undoing knots in her veins and muscles. She could hear her own breathing go from ragged to smooth, and soon she heard nothing at all as she faded into sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**In The Flicker: Chapter 8**

* * *

Emma's breathing normalized as she rested on the bed. She was now in the space in between sleep and consciousness, a sort of sleep paralysis. The pain had long subsided - her blood was no longer acid eating away at her own veins, thanks to Regina. She could not recall whether she had seen any kind of painful grimace on the former queen's face, but she assumed that Regina no longer had the curse. Now it was her burden.

To be fair, Emma had asked for it. She wanted to take it upon herself if it meant Regina's heavy loaded past would spare her if only until they returned home. But shit, she could have been made aware of it when it happened. That disturbed her on all levels - that magic could be used and curses could be cast without consent and without warning.

That was probably what Regina had been subjected to with Cora. And during her terrible reign, what she probably subjected others to.

"What happened to her?" she heard Henry ask Regina by her bedside. She heard her shoes click on the stone floors, unnerved.

"She now has what I had. A curse." Regina stopped, probably searching Henry's face for accusation. From what Henry said next, she was right to.

"You didn't tell me about a curse." There was a tone of hurt and betrayal in his voice, and Emma wanted to much to open her mouth and tell him that it wasn't like that. She tried to move her jaw to no avail.

"You didn't give it to her, did you?"

"I," Regina started, already beginning to panic, "I didn't mean to. I didn't want you to worry."

Well you're doing a great job at that now, Emma thought to herself. She attempted again to move some part of her body, a toe or a finger, but again felt no movement.

"You're doing it again," Henry said quietly. "You're lying to me."

"Henry-"

Little shoes scurried out of the room and into the hall, and Regina, first taking a moment to assess Emma's condition, followed, the clicks of her shoes now an echo that reverberated in Emma's head as she once again faded into unconsciousness.

~#~#~#~#~#~#~#~#

Regina tried not to think about the fact that Henry had never demanded the truth from Emma when she was subjected to the curse. Henry didn't ask about why Regina always looked so haunted and miserable ever since they stumbled into the Enchanted Forest. She tried not to think about it, to think that she didn't matter to him, because that's what Cora wanted. She wanted Regina to have no one but her mother to care for and love her.  
She found him on sitting on a spiraling staircase with his arms around his knees. Regina sighed, and slowly descended the steps to sit next to him.

"My first week in this castle, I almost stumbled down these steps," she said, as if to pick up from their interrupted trip down Regina's more or less unpleasant memory lane. "My dress was too long, and my heels too high. I had a waiting gentlewoman who liked to joke about that incident every now and then."

There were a few good memories from this castle. Regina had forgotten most of them under the weight of misery and Leopold's silent treachery.

Henry kept looking on, not meeting her eyes. He was angry, but he also wanted to laugh, and he didn't know how to balance these conflicting feelings toward his mother.

"I wish you would be this honest all the time," he told her. "I don't like it when you hide things from me."

"I know, I'm sorry."

It was a funny thing, actually, because at that moment Henry found that he didn't know how to be honest with her either. They both shared a very stunted ability to communicate with each other, as Emma had pointed out just hours prior. But now was the chance to actually talk about things. Emma was off in a magical coma, so neither he nor Regina had any messenger to interpret and explain the language of complicated love.

"I didn't want you to worry about my mother," Regina elaborated from earlier, this time much calmer. "I couldn't tell you much more beyond the... heart."

"Why not?" Henry demanded. "It would be nice to know what's going on with you. It would be nice to just..." he licked his dry lips in search of words. Honesty was difficult and scary.

"You think I don't love you," he finally said. His eyes were beginning to water now as he tightened his arms around himself, physically closing himself to compensate for the opening up he was doing. "But... I do. It's just hard when you do bad things, because I should be angry and forgiveness is supposed to be earned. But you didn't tell me anything, and your story wasn't in the book, and I felt really bad, and confused, because maybe if I knew earlier, things could be different.

"You never told me about the curse, the one at home. You kept lying about it. You didn't tell me that when you were coming to this world you were going to stay here and leave me for good. You didn't tell me about your mom, and you didn't tell me that she took your heart and it's in a box instead of inside of you. You didn't tell me about this other curse, and maybe I was stupid for not seeing it, but you still didn't say anything, and then you didn't tell me that you gave it to Emma until it started to hurt her like that. I don't want you to keep bad things to yourself. That's what made you the Evil Queen, but you're not her anymore. You're my mom, I want you to be my mom, but you can't do that when you keep lying to me all the time."

He buried his head in his arms now, so flustered from the words coming out of his mouth, and Regina, though visibly awestruck, acted on her instinct to put her arms around him. Henry stiffened at first, but the tension in his muscles melted as he, to her surprise, leaned into her.

She hadn't done this in years, and it took a while for her to ease up against him. Her hand settled atop his head, the palm warm on his uncombed hair.

"I'm sorry," was all she could manage to say after his tirade, though she was getting sick of her own useless apologies. She took a deep breath. "Henry..."

There were silent tears running down his face, and though she couldn't see them, she knew from the hitch of his breath that he was crying.

"It's not... It's not easy. You're my son - and Emma's, too. But she..." Regina sighed. "How do you tell your own son that you're a monster? How could I ever, from the first time I held you to the first time you held that book, find it in me to tell you the truth? You're right, I've lied to you too much. And I've never been right in doing so. But what have I ever known about being right? There is one thing that stands, though, and it's that the hiding needs to stop. We'll always be honest from now on. And I'll start with this.

"Your mother, that idiot Swan, has a heart that I wish I had. She offered to take the curse from me to spare me...Cora came into the picture shortly after that. Three, four days ago I would have done it to her myself. In fact, I almost did, with that turnover. But... things have changed. And they are changing because I love you, and...maybe even Emma, little by little." Regina was red in the cheeks, and was thankful that said person was out cold as a rock and that her son was facing away from her. "Cora is not getting what she wants, and we are going home together."

Henry finally lifted his head to look at her in the eyes. "Promise?"

Regina smiled regretfully, and delicately cupped his chin. "If you still want honesty then I can't make any promises. But I'll try my best, Henry. So long as you believe in me."

He smiled at her, like he did in the mine, except this time with his beautiful, innocent, glassy brown eyes. "I do."

"Thank you." She kissed the top of his head. "Now it's time to get back to Sleeping Beauty over there. She might be lonely."

* * *

There was a house. It wasn't the biggest, nor was it the smallest, and the family that lived there was ordinary. Emma had the tiniest flicker of hope that maybe they'd like her, but she was in the system long enough to recognize where genuine care and willingness to take her in was present. She didn't understand why people did this. She didn't understand why people put up the front of being good and then did the opposite behind closed doors.

The mother, though, Mrs. Oswald, was a different story. She treated Emma as if she been there all her life, as if she were no different from her other child of the same age, Louise. They got on fine, or so Emma believed, until the nights came and she would hear Mr. Oswald shouting at Mrs. Oswald. Something about how she couldn't do this to their Louise. From her top bunk she had asked her foster sister questions, what "this" was. She never answered, but Emma finally got one when there was a lot less affection during the day, and no more goodnight kisses before bed.

Mrs. Oswald had stopped smiling often at Emma. When they finally gave her up, so had she.

Emma remembered this and woke up with tears on her face. The visions of their indifferent faces faded into black as she was pulled into reality, where she was laying in bed with Regina sitting at her side playing benevolent healer. Regina's palm had been over Emma's head, emitting a soothing blue glow.

"Couldn't have you in screaming fits, could we?" Regina said, now using her thumb to wipe away at Emma's stained cheeks. It was almost too intimate to not be intimidating, but it felt nice. Henry, kneeling at the other side of the bed holding Emma's hand, took note of this.

"I can't control what you see," she explained to Emma. "But I can make sure it doesn't get as violent."

"My own little dream catcher, eh?" Emma commented, then winced at a dull pain returning to her body. "So tell all, Doc."

"Well for starters, you were wrong. You said it wouldn't work on you but here you are, writhing in pain. Turns out there are effects of being the product of 'true love.'"

"I think I was just the product of a honeymoon, nothing too special about that."

"But it is, apparently. True love creates the most powerful magic, and that's you. That's why the curse has taken such a toll on you so quickly, and frequently for that matter. Normally you'd have broken it, but this... this works differently."

"God, you could have told me that."

"I told you it was too risky and that we both didn't know what would happen to you."

"Then why did you even..." Emma saw the look on Regina's face, and she connected the dots. "Cora did it, didn't she."

"Yes," Regina replied regretfully.

"Son of a bitch," Emma groaned as she smudged her face with both her hands.

"Daughter of, actually."

"Is it still here? She didn't take it, did she?" Emma sat up, facing the drawer they had stored it in.

"My heart? No. Cast a deadlock charm as soon as I could, however."

"Well that's suspicious as shit. So what's the plan? Are they getting us out of here or what?"

"They'll come into contact sooner or later. We've made sure that we won't miss it when it comes," Regina nodded to a handmirror by Henry's side as he picked it up and waved it around.

"They'll get the mad hatter's hat and we'll be out of here in no time," Henry said confidently, even though everyone in the room, including him, felt doubt.

"And Cora?" Emma asked. "What will she do? She got to Storybrooke once and she can probably go back. She can do it all over again."

"Well, she won't," Regina said sharply, and didn't open the issue for further discussion.

* * *

Cora's dress draped over the grass as she walked through the meadows, feeling the wind against her face, through her hair, against the folds of her dress and sleeves. The skies were orange and purple, a sign of the sun's retreat.

"Remember these plains, my darling?" she said to Regina as if she were there with her. "Where you'd ride on those silly horses, riding in the most unlady-like fashion."

Fallen leaves from the trees across the plain had been whisked away by the mild wind, making circles and loops as they briefly swept around Cora, momentarily encasing her in the spring.

"Those were foolish days, my dear. But I forgive them. I forgive all your trespasses."

She continued to walk, and somehow each stride brought her farther and farther away from the reality that she was soon to face - the reality that her daughter truly, genuinely did not want her, and that she was wrong.

In the horizon, her old home sat, glinting of the past and what Cora used to be. It beckoned to her, called for her to run back to the days where she was just the miller's daughter, and her father had not sent her away to the King.

"I just wanted to give you power," she said almost sadly, ignoring the tear that made its way down her old cheek. "To change your life before they could change yours."

She unconsciously played with conjured flames at her fingertips, providing a warmth that was akin to the feeling of a hot and beating heart in her hand, and only second to Regina. They flickered and danced even when the sun was down and Cora was stuck in her trance, talking to her daughter who was not there for hours and hours and inside her head hearing cries in response.

* * *

It was almost humorous how after 28 years, Regina found herself trapped in the same castle, the very place she tried to escape once in her still good youth and then again when she enacted the curse.

Henry thought that walking around would help Emma take her mind off whatever it was she saw - he was wrong, but it did help her cope. She looked out the windows and the balconies, saw the stream of fairydust and lights in the sky and even when it was overlayed with old faces that did her harm, she still could look to the mysterious sky and find hope.

They stopped when they reached the ballroom, and Henry had tugged at Regina's hand to pull her toward the harpsichord that sat in the corner.

When Henry was little, just about 4 or 5 years old, they had a grand piano in their living room. Regina used to have him on her lap, teaching him simple melodies, and when he began to grow weary of her instruction, she let him venture off on his own, pressing discordant keys that created cacophony to others but beautiful curiosity to Regina ("It's a little more avant-garde than I would like," she'd say, "but it's his creation."). When he got older they continued to play together, but it wasn't long until they started to stray. Henry became unhappier and lonelier, and Regina became stricter and more frustrated. In attempts to soften their relationship, Regina always called for Henry to sit with her on the piano bench. He said yes less and less often, and when he finally stopped answering her altogether, the piano was gone by the next morning.

So when Henry pulled the bench up and motioned for Regina to sit next to him in front of the harpsichord, she nearly cried.

He pressed on a key, and was displeased to find it horribly tuned. Regina then swept her hand across the keys, and he could hear the insides of the harpsichord being adjusted.

"Try again."

He pressed two this time, a C with an E. When they sounded in concordance, Henry looked up at Regina and smiled.

"Didn't know you ever played," Emma said to the both of them, walking up behind them with her arms crossed.

"Every lady must have some degree of skill in the arts, Miss Swan," Regina said, a trace of nostalgia mixed with sadness in her voice. She lifted her hands over the harpsichord's two sets of keys, still trying to recall the old tunes that her mother would teach her in her efforts to cultivate her into a proper tea-sipping lady.

She began to press on a few chords, struggling to find the right rhythm. Then she gave up altogether and did what she liked, creating a pleasant and soothing progression.

"Kinda sounds like Girls in Red," Emma commented, amused, though she felt more like she was stuck in the Baroque era. Then again, was she? Huh.

"You can sing the 'ah's and 'eh's if you like," Regina said as a joke, but her tone was flat. She stopped playing and it was Henry's turn to dish out what he remembered. He learned to play very simple things on only his right hand, silly things too, like the theme to Batman or at his best, some songs from The Sound of Music.

Emma took Regina's hand and pulled her off the bench to dance. Regina raised an eyebrow but did not protest when the Savior put her arm around Regina's waist and got into proper position.

"What are you doing?"

Emma had her eyes closed when they began to step to Henry's monophonic tunes with the occasional chromatic off-key slip up. "There was a couple I used to stay with," she said, and Regina realized she was having another spell. "They were pretty old fashioned, liked to dance like this a lot."

Emma's brow was knit ever so slightly, but tight enough for Regina to start her healing process, but not removing her hands from Emma's or from around her waist. She visibly relaxed.

"Wouldn't think you to be much of a dancer. You're far less graceful in your natural state," Regina commented, the corner of her mouth raised when Emma delicately spun her. They were lightly dancing to a meter of their own, ignoring Henry's irregular one but regarding the melody nonetheless. They both laughed when Henry gave up and started playing Mary Had a Little Lamb.

"Every lady must have some degree of skill in the arts," Emma parroted. "They were the Nobles. A damn well fitting name for them, too. They'd teach me some moves."

"And what happened to them?"

Emma frowned, her eyes still closed. "Mr. Noble wasn't well. He passed and Diana - that was his wife's name - couldn't find it in her to pick up the pieces. Couldn't blame her, you know? They were really nice. But she had to let me go, I guess. I reminded her of him."

A tear found its way on Emma's cheek, and Regina briefly let go of Emma's hand to wipe it away.

"Doesn't seem as if all your memories are that bad."

Emma opened her emerald pool eyes then, and gave a sad smile. "It's the good ones that hurt the most, you know. Because they didn't last."

They stopped moving when they realized that the music had ceased. Henry was watching him from the bench, and when they caught his stare, they embarrassingly untangled from one another. He only smiled.

"I'm tired," he said when none of them spoke but the quiet became uncomfortable. He actually wasn't very tired at all, but he saw that Emma looked weary.

"Come on then," Regina said, holding out her hand for him to take. "Back to base."

"Ha," Henry said at the subtle pun.

* * *

Snow White held the hat in her hands, looking down the hollow pit and somehow feeling ridiculous that she was putting faith into something worn on the head. The more she thought about it, the more she felt almost uncomfortable. She was putting faith into the very mechanism that ruined her life. A mechanism that was done _by_ Regina, and now, just this once, _for_ Regina.

"This'll work? You're positive?" Charming asked Sidney, he, too, fixated on the hat.

"I have seen it in the act myself," he assured, but then brought doubt back into the picture once more. "However I'm unsure about its workings in this world. I don't believe it's that simple."

"Well," Snow said, crouching down to place the hat down on the floor. "I guess we'll find out."

She twirled the hat by its edges, and waited.


End file.
